expectations in the first quarter. the ceo saying he sees more growth ahead. >> first quarter results show that the strategy is really working. we saw strong results and strong returns which is the most important aspect and we think that's something that's durable over different market conditions through the rest of the year. a wider operating loss for nintendo but not game over just yet. they expect a jump in handheld sales and a weaker yen will put it back in the black this coming year. apple's earnings don't excite investors but the tech giant will give shareholders a major thank you gift in the form of one of the biggest cash payouts in history. >> announcer: you're watching "worldwide exchange" bringing you business news from around the globe. >> breaking news first out of germany. we have been waiting for the survey. it looks like it is coming in

shy of what the market was anticipating. the 104.4 is the reading compared with forecasts of 106.2. expectations that 101.6 is short of the 103 level we were looking for. it looks as though sentiment is softer than the market was anticipating. here's a look at what the euro is doing. selling off by a third of 1% on the back of that news. perhaps yet more speculation of an ecb rate cut. let's ask larry. welcome. before this data, were you in the ecb will cut here camp? >> yes. we have moved to that position. we think they'll cut a quarter point. this coming month. they may wait until june when they have a read on inflation but it is coming we think. >> there's been german opposition. a great interview with one of

the five wiseman yesterday who said he does not think the ecb should cut rates. when you get german data like this, companies are far more cautious than last month. do you think that does make it easier to win over the german heart and mind? >> also pmis were disappointing after a string of disappointments for germany and europe as well as for the world economy. it should be noted that inflation is moving to the low end of what is ecb's target range and to the extent that oil prices remain down here, there's every chance that inflation will undershoot which gives them further reason to cut rates. >> every time we raise this issue, the pushback, the argument against this is that it's not about the price of money. it's not about liquidity, et cetera. look at what markets are doing. it's actually just about the fragmentation we see across the eurozone and that's not something that monetary policy can tackle. >> without question.

that's where the debate will shift. if they do cut rates, it will open up to what other measures they need to take. one of the big problems is the fragmentation and the fact that companies in england borrow at higher rates than they do in germany and that might have to be addressed separately. >> the u.k. is coming out targeting smaller and medium companies but that sounds like something that really is more necessary or at least as necessary in the eurozone economy but there's nothing that i've heard along those lines. >> that's right. i don't think the ecb or broadly speaking the central bank system is ready to come forward with what their plans may look for. funding for lending is a template. this could be in exchange for direct lending commitments which could be implemented by central banks precisely in countries where borrowing rates are

higher. >> any expectation that could come down the pike soon here? >> i think the debate will be joined amongst market participants and economists more generally. i don't think it will happen imminently but that's probably where discussion will go next. >> politics also an important piece of this. italy's president is expected to announce his choice for prime minister today. the current favorite is backed by a broad coalition of right and left politicians. the civic choice movement have vowed to cooperate with the new premier. there are other candidates as well. so when we saw italy rebounding strongly after the weekend coming out of the weekend there was a sense the italian politics was one of the reasons for that. the choice here, how do you read that? is that important for the

evolution of the a eurozone outlook? >> at least there's progress. we have a president. the president is required to invite the parties to form a coalition government. you've listed some of the names that are out there. i suppose though one has to mention that of all of the governments or countries in the so-called periphery, italy is probably least in need of an urgent sort of government program of either reforms or fiscal adjustment having done a lot of the latter at least in recent years. >> also running to some extent a primary surplus. >> precisely. as the recent fiscal monitor pointed out on a structural basis the country is roughly in balance with lots of progress being made. structural reforms are required and only a strong government can implement that but at the moment the status quo in italy is acceptable. >> what's the pressure point? is it italy? is it spain?

does it matter? anything that can make markets go down here? >> obviously the prospect has cooled concerns in bond markets. a bailout could reignite concerns in the eurozone. large funding needs in spain. if they stumble in a debt auction that could trigger a sell-off. >> if anything, we've seen debt auctions be incredibly strong. >> very, very strong. it's somewhat surprising because the banks domestically don't have absorption capacity in balance sheets so the foreigner has played an increasingly important role but will they stay there? there is still about 100 billion of gross issuance to come in the remainder of the year. that's a lot. >> 4.5% when you think is my money really at risk here and where else can i get 4.5% around the world right now. >> the trigger might be when spain announces it will miss steps and targets and announce

it's unlikely to pursue fiscal tightening. that may be where the jitters begin. >> they missed it for 2012. it's going to go ahead with fiscal measures still for this year but i just don't know where they are being rewarded for that the markets should like them to be more relaxed. >> absolutely. i would say i'm perplexed there hasn't been a rebuilding of risk premium. it is conditional. governments if they are going to pursue policies consistent with what would be spelled out in an mou with the ecb, the reality is that a lot of the rhetoric coming out of various parts of southern europe is not consistent for a memorandum of understanding. we ought to reprice these volumes as more risky under the idea that omt might be difficult to obtain. >> if we ever get there. we'll leave it there. thank you for joining us this morning.

ubs does expect a rate cut later this week. also coming up, we'll be live on the ground in zurich. they say the restructuring is on track but skeptical about progress at barclays. and in seoul, a large drop in first quarter profit. 91% decline. find out which other korean tech giant is back in the black and that's coming up at 10:35. the spanish prime minister is reportedly eyeing further tax hikes to bring the country's deficit down. we'll be joined live from madrid to preview the highly anticipated budget plans. with sprint due to report numbers today, we'll ask if the dish ceo's bid for the mobile giant will work and speak to a guest from san francisco who says dish should focus more on spectrum and not on mobile delivery. you can find out what company he says should be the target at 11:20 cet. we're also going to look at goldman closing short position

on gold and talk to a mining stock expert to find out if the downward trend is over done ahead of gold earnings. plenty coming up on the program. apple remains one of the big stories in markets and it could weigh on the tech sector. it came through with a mixed bag of results but also a major gift for shareholders. >> apple turned in quarterly results ahead of analysts expectations on the revenue side beat by a billion dollars at $43.6 billion. eps $10.90 but the forecast disappointing. apple guiding next quarter being $34.5 billion. 36% growth margins. the big news wasn't even those numbers themselves. it was another group of numbers. apple announcing big cash return to shareholders. a total of $100 billion by the end of 2015 in the form of an increased dividend up 15% and

share buybacks that apple is going to start very soon. apple talking about this being a way for value investors to be able to know what they're going to get from the stock. apple also talking about new product launches on the call apple ceo tim cook saying we have some very cool stuff coming this fall and in 2014. analysts asked a follow-up question about whether that means not to expect anything in the summer. cook saying i don't want to say anything more than fall and 2014 for really cool stuff. the stock after hours took a bit of a dive after that. it had been up as high as 425 bucks a share or so. went back down to the point where by the time the call was done the stock was about flat in after hours trading. nonetheless, a big shift for apple. the company saying as it prepares to return cash, more cash to shareholders, it will plan to take on some debt as a way of managing its cash

balance. the company for a long time prided itself on having zero debt. soon that will end. the company nonetheless saying they are confident in their ability to churn out new products in the future. beat back its rivals and pointing out that the ipad mini and ipad in general doing very well versus low cost rivals and the iphone had a quarter better than many analysts expected upwards of 37 million units sold. guys, back to you. >> let's get a check now of european markets and after a session yesterday where pretty much no sector was in the red, we're seeing more differentiation this morning. want to look at banks in particular because we're getting that flow of earnings out. we are seeing positive responses from barclays and credit suisse. rbs up 1.5% as well lloyd's is up despite sale of branches to a

company in the u.k. and also we're responding to funding for lending scheme that british authorities just announced trying to boost lending to small and medium sized companies. we'll have more on the earnings coming up in the program. look over here. autos just slightly higher. numbers show stocks responding positively but the rest of the sector mixed. laggers include the consumer facing sectors, food and drink and retail down two-thirds of 1%. we are following a strong session yesterday where we saw gains in the range of 1% to 2%. footsie is up 0.6 of 1%. ibex is up 1.2%. more green arrows across the board for indexes despite one of the strongest performances yesterday we've seen in some time. here's what's happening in the bond space where again this wall of liquidity from japan or maybe

you could argue it's from japan or argue that people are searching for yield continues to flow into markets in the italian ten year is now below 4% even as the country struggles to form a government. even as concerns about the eurozone remain. there's a sense as well as we spoke with larry hathaway off the top of the program that they will cut rates next weeks. a little bit of flows out of u.s. and german debt. here's a quick look at 4x. the focus of markets has been the dollar/yen. we are higher this morning. so much attention will be on whether can he with breach this 100 level. you can expect to take the rest of equities and risky sovereign debt with it. not up much. you can see reaction to what that's doing. let's go out to asia.

>> asian markets rebounded from yesterday's losses tracking gains in global equities overnight. the winner today was the nikkei up 2.53%. mitsubishi motors soared 20% after forecasting a bumper fiscal year thanks to the weaker yen and lower material costs. australia added 1.7% while lower cpi stoked the case of another rate cut. whistle bargain hunt shanghai had gaining and hang seng gained. elsewhere, apple asian suppliers helped lead tech heavy indices such as taiwan and south korea. suppliers brushed aside concerns about apple's slowing sales momentum ending higher after the tech giant reported better than

expected q-2 revenue. apple's top contract maker added 6% in hong kong and 2.5% in taiwan. and au optronica added 3.46% today. and roughly 30% of revenue comes from apple also ended in the green. back to you, kelly. >> thanks very much for that. turning our attention to one of the major stories yesterday. fbi and s.e.c. looking into a fate twitter message that sent u.s. markets into a tailspin. this tweet was sent out reporting explosions at the white house injuring president obama. jay carney said the president was fine but within three minutes of the tweet, the dow

plunged before recovering. most trading was done by computer programs used by high frequency trading firms. reuters say the move wiped out 1.4 billion from the s&p 500's value. a group called syrian electronic army is claiming responsibility. the group has also taken credit for hacking twitter accounts of bbc and "60 minutes." check your passwords and update your security on twitter. we want to know is twitter to blame or high frequency trading really the issue? we want to know if you trust twitter in your trading decisions? get in touch with us. you can tweet us of course. e-mail. straight ahead on the program, credit suisse insisting that restructuring plan is on track. we'll be joined live from zurich when we come back.

welcnew york state, where cutting taxes for families and businesses is our business. we've reduced taxes and lowered costs to save businesses more than two billion dollars to grow jobs, cut middle class income taxes to the lowest rate in sixty years, and we're creating tax free zones for business startups. the new new york is working creating tens of thousands of new businesses, and we're just getting started. to grow or start your business visit thenewny.com [ agent smith ] i've found software that intrigues me. it appears it's an agent of good. ge has wired their medical hardware with innovative software to be in many places at the same time. using data to connect patients to software, to nurses

to the right people and machines. ♪ helping hospitals treat people even better, while dramatically reducing waiting time. now a waiting room is just a room. [ telephone ringing ] [ static warbles ] [ beeping ] red or blue? ♪

welcome back to the program. barclays just reported a drop in first quarter profit fell shy of estimates and was hit by the new restructuring plan. the bank took charges of 500 million pounds during the period

related to plans to scale back the banking portfolio. barclays shares are up 1.5% on a day when most european stocks are higher. credit suisse reported stronger than expected first quarter earnings helped by cost cuts and reduction of riskier assets. they plan a cash dividend for this year adding restructuring plan is on track and shares are responding positively to the news up 0.8 of 1% in zurich. you have been speaking with the bank ceo. hi, caroline. >> reporter: they are pretty happy with the set of numbers. 1.3 billion swiss franks. according to ubc the manajority

came from where revenues were expected and lower costs helped as well and when i spoke to brady dugan this morning he was optimistic about the next couple of quarters as well. >> we're medium term constructive on the economies around the world. you have volatility and ups and downs even during a quarter but we feel constructive about things. i would say so far in april we're only a couple weeks into it but we feel like market conditions are pretty similar to what we saw in the first quarter if you take out very strong start to the year you see in january. we feel like things continue to be constructive. i think our business model is one that is as we said resilient and will perform very well across a number of different conditions. so again our first quarter results we think show that strategy is really working. we saw very strong results, strong returns which is the most important aspect and we think that's going to be something that's durable over different market conditions through the rest of the year.

>> reporter: let's continue the analysis of first quarter numbers with head of financials. thank you so much for joining us this morning. what do you make of the numbers? >> i would call it a mixed bag. while the overall numbers are better than expected by a margin of plus 10% over concerns that quality of the results look different as you mentioned the improvement came mainly from the investment bank which i look at a volatile business and private banking also softened a bit from restructuring obviously plus a lack of client activity despite improvements over the last quarter but not levels you would expect. >> are you indicating with this new business model withhich has less risky assets, we will see volatility depending on what the market does? >> it's not only fundamentals which drive the markets at the moment, it's a lot of political and regulatory issues and this

has an impact on especially as we could see in the u.s. on investment banks so i would expect more volatility to come in the future. >> let's talk about the cash dividend that credit suisse flagged this morning. how significant is this for credit suisse given there were so many concerns about weak capital levels and how does it change the investment case for the bank? >> it's very positive and surprising to the market because we would have expected not this clear onset at this moment so it shows that capital is over for credit suisse and this is quite a positive for the investment case. >> what does that mean? what are you telling your clients in terms of credit suisse versus ubs? >> we prefer ubs because of their business model with which geared more toward private banking and upside for the future whereas in credit suisse

i would say the higher gearing toward investment banking is to me something that we don't prefer at the moment. >> wonderful. thank you so much for that. head of financials research, thank you. back over to you. >> we'll have more coming up in the program on those results on european banks generally with simon. he'll join us from 11:00 cet. sticking with news out of switzerland, stronger than expected sales for novartis. they tapped a new ceo and announced plans to shed 300 jobs in consumer health unit saying 2013 will be a year of transition. this comes shortly after the u.s. government filed a civil lawsuit against novartis alleging that one of the units had fraudulent payments from medicare and medicaid. the group is declinying the cla.

they are lagging the market on this positive day down 0.4 of 1%. keep your thoughts coming here. you know how to reach us. worldwide@cnbc.com. over on the website today, you can read why jim o'neil won't put family's cash into bunds any time soon. you can read more of what the german wiseman has to say on cnbc.com. sterling taking a bashing this year with yen following amongst majors but does the pound have legs to bounce back here? more details online ahead of tomorrow's first quarter gdp reading and you can follow us on twitter. we promise that we're protecting ourselves against hack. we'll be right back.

you're watching "worldwide exchange." welcome. these are headlines. it's a tale of two earnings for european banks as barclays takes a charge while credit suisse says turnaround is on track after earnings beat on

investment banking strength. the euro taking a dive after germany's sentiment index dips in april. the market taking a breather as well. the group sees growth picking up in the second quarter. not game over yet for nintendo despite an operating loss. they expect a jump in handheld sales and says a weaker yen will put it back in the black this coming year. apple's earnings don't excite investors but the tech giant is planning to give shareholders a thank you gift in the form of a major cash payout. you might think we would take a breather for equities. we're still pointed higher. we're rallying across the continent. small gains but gains nevertheless. we learned that german business

index softer than expected following weaker pmi figures yesterday. take a look at sovereign bond space. here's where we are also seeing the rally continue in peripheral debt. italy is down as it struggles to form a government. we're learning that a prime minister could be named as soon as today. a couple of -- looks like ten-year is catching. germany up to 1.25. data out of britain. we're looking at the mortgage lending figures. they show a decline, a small decline in march versus february. this follows about a 200 million pound drop in february and 300 million pound drop in march. lending to nonfinancial firms also declined albeit by a smaller amount than in february. there were more mortgage approvals but net lending figure was lower. the gross lending figure also

slightly lower and consumer credit declining by 400 million pounds following a small increase in february. so no signs of a large credit expansion across the british economy. we've known that. we know that data on gdp for first quarter tomorrow would be soggy. here's a quick look at sterling up a tenth of 1%. not too much response to that data. elsewhere we're watching the japanese yen. that's inching closer to 100 mark not able yet to take it out. you can brace yourselves for major story when it does. 99.5. higher this morning. interesting as well that nintendo sees weaker yen as a reason why it may return to profitability this year and so it's not game over just yet for the japanese video game maker which in earnings said it does expect to return to profit this fiscal year. helped by stronger console sales. the company reported a bigger than expected operating loss for the year ending march 31st. the supermario maker is looking

for 30% increase in the handheld devices. what's in store for the company now? welcome. so there was concern raised going into this set of earnings but it looks like nintendo managed to calm some jitters for now at least. >> clever timing of making an announcement after the market, isn't it? the results were pretty abysmal and shows that at present the machine isn't selling. they are targeting 9 million units this year having sold just 3 million last year and if you think that it was at the launch, 9 million is a big ask. are they going to cut prices or come out with strong software? we hope the ladder. they are pushing back the big titles. >> obviously they cut prices that's not a feasible strategy for returning it to

profitability. >> are they going to make 100 billion yen in operating profits? a billion dollars on these figures? it's a tough ask. >> can the japanese central bank rescue nintendo and other companies as well? >> the problem that nintendo has is that it offshores a lot. a lot of components are dollar based. it's an exchange rate sort of transfer. >> that's why we have seen when we talk about japanese automakers benefiting from this, it's actually not as clear as would you imagine because so much of the cost base, hallowing out of the economy, do you take it at face value that it will help return to profitability this year? >> it helps but whether it helps to extent they are forecasting, they will have to produce some really good headlines unit sales numbers to deliver on this. >> what about looking at nintendo as play on netflix reviving investor hopes given it

reported decent subscriber numbers and competitor to the cable channels if they are used to stream that content, would that perhaps help them out? >> i have a wii. one of the 3 million people that have. i use it for netflix. come this christmas, i think of the wide range of products that netflix will be on. why would you choose the wii. >> when you can order pizza on the xbox. >> it's actually a pretty efficient system and it will be a cheap one in comparison with console systems coming out this christmas. it is a limited program based around nintendo games. with xbox and ps3 you get a wider range of the games and people that buy new consoles are people who like aggressive new games that come out and that's

what nintendo will be up against in christmas 2013. >> are they wrong to put the eggs in the wiiu basket. >> the problem with 3ds is it's competing with smartphones and tablets and cheap games that come from that. the 3ds operates around an expensive piece of software to go into an expensive piece of hardware and that's a troubled model right now. >> what would it take for you to like the company story here? >> looking forward to seeing what the game will come out and wow the customers. if you see that, then that's the signal. it is in the end about games you can play on these machines. >> why do you think shares are responding so positively 4.5%? >> that was before the market. the assumption was i'm targeting

1 billion yen in operation profit this year and said that prior to these announcements and comes up with that figure. is that a hopeful target or a realistic target? >> we'll see whether they can sustain that rally. >> going into this year. >> we'll leave it there. thank you very much. now, as i mentioned, perhaps one of the things that could help wiiu is ordering pizza. that's the move that microsoft announced with xbox. a big story yesterday we were having fun with saying is this really something that is going to help microsoft or just another desperate move to some extent? pizza hut to its credit has been innovative when it comes to using the internet and new technologies and they were one of the first that would let you order online back in 1994. picking up with lg electronics, profit fell 13% in the first quarter. the world's number two tv maker

saw demand jump to a record high but not enough to shake off slowing global demand. 91% drop. a big black eye for this company. >> yes. that's exactly right. when it comes to lg electronic earnings this past quarter, the breakdown of numbers is more important and meaningful than the slip of 13% in its operating profit. yes, its tv sales did slow in the first quarter and generally first quarters tend to be slow. i'm paying a lot of attention to the mobile division for a change. strong performance there shipping more than 10 million smartphone units for the very first time for lg electronics. it's far behind apple and samsung in terms of global smartphone market share but in the fourth quarter last year it did rank number three in terms

of lte smartphones. it's really playing its catchup. it's really the mobile that brings in margin for electronics for this firm rather than home appliances like television and according to the firm's ir person i speak to, it's really the mobile performance that moves its shares and that's what has driven up the stock price by some 18% over the past three months. kelly? >> okay. thanks very much. we'll watch shares for their reaction. by the way, if you stay there for one second i want to ask about monetary policy because the bank of korea may consider that its main role but it will also start hosting weddings. we want to know who will walk down the central bank's aisle. >> i know. it's getting married in a central bank quite meaningful, don't you think? the bank of korea hosted weddings before but it had to stop for some years because of

security reasons but reopening now for weddings. it won't be for normal people like me but only for special people like its hard working bok employees it's more afford and low key and romantic, don't you think? >> if i could get married at the central bank, i would be there in a heartbeat. i'm going to have to get a job there first. interesting way to recruit talent perhaps. thanks very much for that. you can now get married in the bank of korea but only if you work there. just as a weaker yen is increasing sales, the sales of cameras is dropping. smartphone cameras put a crimp in sales. canon is the world's largest camera maker. it raised operating forecast by

10% missing what analysts were looking for. shares of mitsubishi motors moved into the fast lane as they report better than expected numbers up 20%. how much did profits accelerate? we have the story from the nikkei live from tokyo. >> the car makers group net profit for the year ended in march rose 59% to $382 million. the figure is nearly three times its previous forecast and marks the firm's highest net profit in ten years. shares of mitsubishi motored soared on the news. improvement is due to foreign exchange related gains and lower material costs. slow business in europe was offset by improved sales of small cars and pickup trucks in southeast asia. other japanese car makers like fuji are expecting a weak yen to lift operating profits to highest levels ever in fiscal 2013.

the yen is hovering near the dollar, many firms are expected to base their current year forecast on modest rate assumptions of 90 to 95 yen. they are likely to upgrade profit estimates later in the year. if the yen holds at its current level or weakens further. kelly? >> okay. thanks very much for that. now, moving on. we have news out of china central bank. outstanding mortgages up 17.4% in the first quarter. property loans up 16.4% and on that note beijing investment group is one of china's leading real estate investment groups. it's founder and chairman made headlines when he tried to buy 300 kilometers of land in iceland. his main focus is on the domestic market. ross caught up with him and started off by asking him for his views generally on the sector. >> translator: it's been quite a few tough years for the market as the real estate sector has become very important for the

economy. however, in years going forward in order to return things to normal it will be a challenge for the government because what has happened in the real estate market has been hit very hard and often times it has been the pillar for local preventional government development. without this sector growing fast, it's hard for the local government's debt, employment and market being able to increase so therefore next two to three years the new government must focus on getting property sector back to normal. >> you've already made some investments overseas. are you looking to step that up and pursue more? what's going to happen. >> translator: in china only 50% of all urbanization has been completed. while europe is in a recession and probably needs another ten years to recover, u.s. markets are recovering faster. we need more global experience to invest there. investing in the u.s. is more attractive as there's more

private experiences. lower entrances for capital. less government interference and less gray areas to deal with. in china, however, all of these are still prevalent. as you know, we already looked at an interest in iceland but for us we still want to focus on china and perhaps in ten years return to europe when the debt crisis has improved. >> what have you learned from your experience in iceland? has it put you off at all? >> translator: my experience with iceland has been a very special case because my experience with denmark, sweden and finland has been different. a lot of people question why chinese person would go to far to invest in such a remote area. look at my track record in china. look at areas that are remote locations and now i own some of the most valuable land in those areas. many people think iceland is very remote, if you think about it in the long run in ten years

ice caps melt in the north pole than iceland property will become very expensive because it's the only way ships can pass to go to europe so 300 kilometers in that area will be very profitable for me unlike most state owned enterprises who think short-term, a private company like mine can afford to think in the long-term. >> over the next ten years, what do you think needs to be done to develop the next generation of entrepreneurs? it seems pretty clear it's the private sector that's got to pick up the bat in future growth. >> translator: now that there's a new government in place i can say the past ten years have been very bad for the economy. we've lost a lot of valuable resources and also lost momentum we had. that's why we had so many problems with the economy. before we had open markets and entrepreneurship and that's what helped china succeed. we have to go back to market forces as well as fight corruption. >> and tomorrow ross will sit

down exclusively a chairman who is called warren buffett of china and ross will be back here to tell you about it himself. you can find why investors are helping to surge peugeot sales. [singing] hoveround takes me where i wanna go...

where will it send me... one call to hoveround and you'll be singing too! pick up the phone and call hoveround, the premier power chair. hoveround makes it easier than any other power chair. hoveround is more maneuverable to get you through the tightest doors and hallways. more reliable. hoveround employees build your chair, deliver your chair, and will service your chair for as long as you own your chair. most importantly, 9 out of 10 people got their hoveround for little or no cost. call now for your free dvd and information kit. you don't really have to give up living, because you don't have your legs. hoveround replaced the legs. and now every hoveround comes with this handy tote bag and cup holder for access to your favorite items. and right now, get this limited edition hoveround america travel mug free with your hoveround delivery. [singing] hoveround takes me where i wanna go. call or log on to hoveround.com to find out where a hoveround can take you!

welcome back to the program. take a look at shares of peugeot. they are up after reporting a drop of sales in the first quarter. no one can hold the markets down. they will take additional cost cutting measures if the market continues to go downhill in 2014. it said it would start talks with labor unions in the next quarter and may close a plant near paris a year ahead of schedule as protester disrupt production. and renault will report first quarter results after the bell tonight. shares are down about 0.4 of 1%. a reversal from the trend that we've seen for these two

automakers over the past year or so and daimler has ungraded profits. the german car maker blamed a slump in markets and in particular western europe and they expect a recovery in the second half of the year. the famed second half rebound thanks to cost cuts. daimler shares are down in the market today by 1.3%. portugal's government unveiled plans trying to pull the government out of the three-year recession. they will provide incentives for investment in the company. exports will represent 50% of gdp. before the stimulus program is passed, portugal may have to seek permission from creditors of its bailout package and spain's prime minister has said it is likely the country will

face further spending cuts and tax hikes as it tries to bring down the deficit. the government will present new budget plans on friday. for more, let's get straight out to madrid for the latest. the budget statement sounds like a big deal. we'll hear about it friday. >> don't expect too much from this budget policy announcement on friday. it's basically what the spanish prime minister wanted to explain yesterday. to stop speculation about a stiff and radical change in policy. it's true over the last few days the spanish press has been speculating about the significant change to be announced on friday. especially after the finance minister told "the wall street journal" on monday that spain will need to find a better balance between growth incentive and deficit reduction. and also on back of reports still unconfirmed that spain would be given more time, probably two years, to reduce its public deficit but time

doesn't mean less efforts. it's what he explained yesterday. the government will now focus on economic growth and will announce on friday stimulus measures to drive the country out of recession but no budget consolidation is over. more efforts will be necessary. we'll not announce spending cuts like last year. however, some entries in the budget needs to be adjusted and also we don't want to increase the income tax rates but it will all depend on the economic growth. that's what he said. sounds like a political message sent to european partners if spain is given more time to comply with deficit target, the government will not waste this time and try to keep the deficit under control. kelly, over to you. >> do you wear suits from -- >> sorry?

no, it's not. >> good looking suit. joining us from madrid. we'll hear more about that on friday. i bring this up because luxury brands have been under pressure amid slower growth in china. there are reasons for companies to stay upbeat. >> it is it stylish, sleek and highly sought after. luxury goods the envy of fashionistas all around the world from the streets of milan to beijing, luxury fashion is still in demand. as europe remains in the doldrums and there are signs of slowing, it begs the question how much longer can it last? in sidney this week, an italian label believes there are growth opportunities in the world's second largest economy.

>> i think that we were used to double digit growth and now we have to be ready for slower growth. i do believe there is growth to look for in china. we are in approximately 35 cities and there are at least double of the cities that we can go in the next couple of years. >> the company is on the lookout for more global opportunities and is looking to build on its strong relationship with australia which dates back over 100 years to 1910. here in sidney, it is the draw card of the 50th annual wall awards. this event tonight shows off its full line in front of a vip only sidney crowd. they plan on opening three to

four stores down under over three to five years as it eyes domestic consumers and is looking to capitalize on the international tourist dollar. >> in terms of luxury industry, we're relying a lot on visitors coming from all over the world. so i think that we remain positive that things will come back and provided we do together the right things. >> zegna says growth will be weak but 2014 is going to be better and on the prospect of some day taking the family run company public -- >> no question about it. we are 100% family and 100% private and we are financially strong to our own.

>> matthew taylor, cnbc, sidney. >> we would stay on those pictures longer. any way. with hacking groups under scrutiny, australian police arrested a 24-year-old on charges of hacking a government website earlier this month. earlier another hacker was sentenced to prison. the group claimed responsibility for multiple attacks on government and corporate websites in recent years. often in the name of internet freedom. and the fbi and s.e.c. are looking into a fake twitter message that briefly sent u.s. markets sharply lower tuesday afternoon. hackers took control of the ap's twitter page and sent out this tweet at 1:07 p.m. eastern reporti ining explosions at the white house that injured president obama. ap confirmed the message was a fake but within three minutes of the tweet the dow plunged 137 points before recovering. most of the trading was done by

computer programs used by high frequency trading. perhaps a better question is whether there should be programs which trade on these tweets without verifying them but this of course is going to be part of the evolution of using social media for trading. keep responses coming here on "worldwide exchange." e-mail us at worldwide@cnbc.com. or you can tweet us. u.s. authorities says it appears neither of the boston bombing suspects has had ties to any terrorists groups but they say tamerlan tsarnaev who was killed in a shootout last thursday often looked at extremist websites including the al qaeda online magazine "inspire." his brother, dzhokhar, continues to answer questions from his hospital room. he's been upgraded from serious to fair condition. boston police announced on their

twitter page that boylston street reopened to limited traffic. joe biden will attend a memorial service for campus officer sean collier who was killed by the suspects last week. we'll take a quick break. news out of germany with regards to growth forecast. it's at 1.6% increasing 2013% to 0.5 from 0.4. a source telling reuters despite weaker pmi figures. germany seeing more growth coming back. european banks scrambling to restructure. that will be when we come back.

welcnew york state, where cutting taxes for families and businesses is our business. we've reduced taxes and lowered costs to save businesses more than two billion dollars to grow jobs, cut middle class income taxes to the lowest rate in sixty years,

and we're creating tax free zones for business startups. the new new york is working creating tens of thousands of new businesses, and we're just getting started. to grow or start your business visit thenewny.com

welcome back to "worldwide exchange." i'm kelly evans and these are your headlines from around the world. a tale of two earnings from european banks today. barclays taking a hefty charge while credit suisse says the turnaround is on track after earnings beat on the back of investment banking strength. and germany fueling speculation the ecb could cut rates at its meeting next week and nintendo reports a wider operating loss. supermario maker expects a jump in handheld sales and says a weaker yen could put it in the black this coming year. apple's earnings aren't exciting

investors but the tech giant will give share shoeholders a t you gift in the form of a big cash payout. >> announcer: you're watching "worldwide exchange" bringing you business news from around the globe. >> here's a look at futures as we inch toward the start of the u.s. trading session. the dow is trying to add 20 points to the open. nasdaq and s&p pointed higher. interesting here to see nasdaq trying to add a point this morning. apple such a big part of its behavior and we'll keep an eye to see whether investors after selling auto shares last night decide to have a change of tune and buyback may not be the sexiest thing in the world but it's supporting equity prices not just for apple but across the globe. ftse cnbc global 300 is up 0.3 of 1%. we generally have been rallying throughout the session. european markets are rebounding. you would have thought on the

back of a session where we saw gains in range of 2% yesterday, we might make it up today. we'll check on that but that would be a big pullback. ibex 35 up 1% despite spain saying it will have to do more cuts, more tax hikes potentially to help meet fiscal targets. markets don't care. they continue to rise. ftse 100 a third of 1% for its part. bond space has been so much of a story this week. look at italian ten year. we'll hear about the next prime minister today. running a primary budget surplus so maybe not the worst thing in the world. spain below 4.3%. extraordinary rally this year for peripheral sovereign debt. here's what's happening in the 4x space. we can talk about the euro/dollar rallying a tenth of

1%. weaker pmi data. the dollar/yen is focus. we're adding a tenth of 1%. within 40 basis points of that 100 mark. closer this week without successfully breaking through. if we do, you can expect it to bring the rest of global markets along for the ride. let's get straight out to more. >> thank you, kelly. asian markets are higher today thanks to positive lead from wall street and europe overnight. japan clinched the top spot on performance chart again with nikkei up more than 2%. and standout winner was mitsubishi motors. stock soared at 20% after the company said annual profit nearly tripled from the guidance it gave back in february. australia added 1.7% while lower cpi stoked the case of another rate cut. we saw bargain hunting in china

markets with shanghai gaining. blue chip rallied 6% to 5.5-year high after posting 180% surge in q-1 profit thanks to lower fuel costs. elsewhere asian suppliers for apple helped lift the tech heavy indices like taiwan and south korea. they brushed aside concerns about apple's slowing sales momentum after they reported better than expected q-2 revenue and jumped almost 6% in hong kong today in and 2.5% in taiwan. and the supplier of screens for ipad mini jumped today. and a south korean chip maker added nearly 1% today. the company swings to a net profit and expects a better q-2. that's a look at the asian markets. kelly, back to you. >> it's a pretty consistent

message. all green behind her. barclays not in the green. well, shares might be but the company missed on earnings reporting a drop in first quarter profit that was shy of estimates hit by cost hikes. the british bank took charges of more than 500 million pounds during the period related to plans cutting nearly 4,000 jobs and scaled back the risk portfolio. the investment banking group did show improvement. shares as i said are actually responding to the upside by 1.2%. why? let's ask simon. welcome. what do you think accounts for the share reaction here? >> barclays has the great benefit of course and it's in the u.k. where there's a lot of dedicated money that wants to come into equities. the two biggest domestic competitors feel the icy hand of the state on their shoulder so anything that barclays does on restructuring front looks better

than their two peers and barclays is outperforming the two of them. >> they look better by comparison opposed to looking that great on a their own? >> interesting contrast to credit suisse where we may talk about but in a barclays started a period of transformation and we know from banks like credit suisse that this period of transformation takes several quarters and during that time you tend to disappoint analysts earnings. the key is to basically stick as close to those short-term forecasts as possible so to not have too much upset in the stock price but keep delivering the message that progress is being made. >> this is where management shake-up plays in. too late in making this change at the top? >> i think had an outsider come in rather than jenkins promoted from the retail bank over the whole thing would have been easier for that person to sweep

aside some of the old guy. the people that are identified as continuing to pay themselves at elevated levels even post the crisis. that type of cultural change that barclays needs to do more for regulators in the media than necessarily for shareholders. >> that's the point about anthony jenkins. the message they were trying to send is this guy is from the retail bank that will hake make traditional bank and get away from riskier stuff. they did pick him to represent that message. >> he does represent that message. barclays is quite an insular inward looking institution. the board is extremely conservative. this is a very barclays way of doing things. i think shareholders follow the stock for a long time know how the board works and giving barclays the benefit of the doubt not just today but

year-to-date. >> i wonder if there's tension about what they want to do to make it a traditional bank and what the market is rewarding. if you look at their investment bank doing better and that's a consistent theme we've seen with some of the other investment banks here. is this misguided for them to shift so much away from that area of strength? >> again, the comparison with credit suisse is striking where credit suisse tried this muddle through strategy. we're not going to massively downsize like ubs. we'll stick to bits we're good at and get out of bits we're not so good at and that credit suisse message fell aside because you had a massive dramatic transformation in its peer group. look at barclays and restructuring stories in the u.k. where people want to own equities, your alternative is lloyd's struggling to get sales done and rbs which is called to be broken up now by the church this week. where else are you going to put

your money. all barclays has to do is keep the story of moving positively. >> maybe britain needs more banks at this point to give people options. >> it can't help them though. the very reason why co-op pulled out of lloyd's is because the bank of england has so much capital for new banks to come in. what the government wants, what the archbishop wants, you can't deliver under the bank of england's regulations. >> that's a great point. you mentioned credit suisse. the company reporting stronger than expected first quarter earnings helped by cost cuts and reduction of riskier assets. the company says it was planning a cash dividend this year as well and that its restructuring plan is on track. what more can you tell us? >> it's a solid set of numbers but it has something for bears and bulls. let's start with negative aspects. the private banking result was disappointing but to the

positive, the bright spots. the investment banking result is really what drove the overall net profit result 1.3 billion swiss on top of that lower costs and of course fewer losses from the reduction of risk weighted assets. having said that, you know, i want to point out that analysts you spoke to in the last quarter doesn't like quality of the quality of investment bank because volatility is here to stay and the results in the future will depend on what the markets are going to do. speaking of the markets, when i spoke to mr. dugan this morning, he was pretty constructive as he says about the rest of the year. >> we're medium term constructive on the economies around the world, on the markets. obviously you have volatility ups and downs through even during a quarter but we feel actually pretty constructive

about things. i would say so far in april we're only a couple weeks into it but we feel like market conditions are pretty similar to what we saw in the first quarter if you take out the very strong start to the year that you always see in january. we feel like things continue to be pretty constructive. i think our business model is one that is resilient and will perform very well across a number of different conditions. again our first quarter results we think show that strategy is working. we saw very strong results. strong returns which is the most important aspect and we think that's going to be something that's very durable over different market conditions over the rest of the year. >> that was brady dougan speaking to me earlier. one very important point to point out this morning is of course the dividend. the cash dividend that credit suisse is accruing for 2013 and analysts see this as a very positive sign because they've announced it so early on and that pretty much dispels all of the fears about credit suisse's weak capital levels so eminent

last year. >> great stuff. thanks for that interview and for bringing it to us. simon, your response to what you heard there? >> i think brady has probably called ten of the last two bull markets. forever coming out and being positive and perhaps he's speaking more to corporate ceos and finance directors who might see him on the show. that clip will be replayed over the next three weeks. >> that's not the nature of this television business, simon. we don't replay things like that to an aggressive extent. >> that's right. brady is sending a very positive message to his client base. >> that's what you would expect a ceo to do frankly. >> he's done a great job there. they have stuck to their knitting under tremendous pressure. if we look at our screens that show many months credit suisse was at the bottom of relative valuation. people would say ubs brilliant restructuring and credit suisse

what are they going to do? it's now coming good. another interesting fact for you. credit suisse delivered 14% today as did handles bank yesterday. all stocks are up 19% to 20% year-to-date. these are strong performers not affected by what's going on in peripheral economies. they are delivering a decent return on a strong capital base. credit suisse is up there with market leaders. >> you're not in the camp that credit suisse needs to change course and that this muddle through strategy despite sounding perhaps like almost no strategy is actually going to continue for them to pay off. >> yes absolutely. i think ubs -- thankfully for them, the wealth management business is going well. i wouldn't be negative on credit suisse on margin in wealth management business today because drop-off is caused by interest rates which will impact everybody. the transaction and fee business is growing which is good.

all of that reflects well on ubs which is a bigger wealth manager. they'll struggle in investment banking side because as we see year on year increases for some of the banks barclays for example going to be very difficult for ubs to deliver that with the big, big downsizing they're doing. >> great point. we'll leave it there. thank you for your time again. financial sector strategist at olive tree financial group. other big story. apple. it could hover over markets as the tech giant came through with a mixed bag of results but a big cash gift for shareholders. >> apple turned into quarterly results that were a little ahead of analysts expectations on the revenue side beat by a billion dollars at $43.6 billion. but the forecast a little bit disappointing. apple guiding to next quarter being $34.5 billion. 36% gross margins. the big news probably wasn't even those numbers themselves.

it was another group of numbers. apple announcing big cash return to shareholders. a total of $100 billion by the end of 2015 in the form of an ini increased dividend and share buybacks that apple will start soon. apple talking about this being a way for value investors to be able to know what they're going to get from the stock. apple also talking about new product launches on the call. apple ceo tim cook saying we have cool stuff coming in fall and in 2015. analysts asked whether that meant not to expect anything in the summer. cook said i don't want to say anything than fall and 2014 for really cool stuff. the stock after hours took a bit of a dive after that. it had been up as high as 425 bucks a share or so. went back down to the point where by the time the call was done the stock was about flat in

after-hours trading. a big shift from apple. the company saying as it prepares to return cash more cash to shareholders it will plan to take on some debt as a way of managing its cash balance. the company for a long time prided itself on having zero debt. soon that will end. the company nonetheless says they are confident in their ability to churn out new products in the future, beat back rivals and pointing out that the ipad mini, ipad in general doing very well versus low-cost rivals and the iphone had a quarter better than many analysts expected upwards of 37 million units sold. guys, back to you. >> the other big story in the u.s. session yesterday. the fake tweet. the fbi and s.e.c. are looking into the message that briefly sent u.s. markets sharply lower. hackers took control of the ap's twitter page and sent out this tweet at 1:07 p.m. eastern reporting explosions at the white house that injured president obama. ap quickly said the message was

a fake but within three minutes of the tweet, the dow plunged 147 points before recovering. much of the trading was done of course by computer programs used by high frequency trading firms. on that note, we were asking people today whether twitter is to blame or is this really an issue about high frequency trading? do you trust twitter in your trading decisions? it's becoming more and more central to social markets. we'll be right back. italy taps bund markets. we'll bring you the latest when we come back. [ driver ] today, my ambulance knew all about a bike accident,

just by talking to a helmet. it grabbed the patient's record before we even picked him up. it found out the doctor we needed was at st. anne's. wiggle your toes. and it got his okay on treatment from miles away. it even pulled strings with the stoplights. my ambulance talks with smoke alarms and pilots and stadiums. but, of course, it's a good listener too. [ female announcer ] today cisco is connecting the internet of everything. so everything works like never before.

welcome back to "worldwide exchange." results of italy's latest debt auction is out. the bond went off at the lowest yield level since 1999. the inflation linked bond went out at 2.65% selling 750 million euros worth of that 2023 bond. 2.5 billion of the 2014 at the high end of what italy was planning. that went out at a yield of 1.167 down by 1.7% on march 25th. the bid to cover airborratio wa healthy.

750 million of the 2023 inflation linker high end of what was planned. yield 2.65% was over 3% on march 25th and bid to cover was down but having no trouble with people showing up to auction. it was a low for the two-month paper. italy's latest debt auction. waiting for the country's president to announce his choice for prime minister today. the current favorite appears to be a former prime minister who is backed by a broad coalition of central left and central right. the civic choice movement vowed to cooperate with the new premier. other likely candidates include two others. it's a rally in italian equities and debt this morning. if you are just joining us on the program, these are headlines. apple profits falling for the

first time in a decade. will the company's big cash payout winov over investors? barclays insists their turnaround is on track and nintendo reporting a larger than expected loss. and dish has made sure the race for sprint is on. why do they say the battle for spectrum is a myth? we'll be right back. welcome to the new new york state, where cutting taxes for families and businesses is our business. we've reduced taxes and lowered costs to save businesses more than two billion dollars to grow jobs, cut middle class income taxes to the lowest rate in sixty years, and we're creating tax free zones for business startups. the new new york is working creating tens of thousands of new businesses, and we're just getting started. to grow or start your business

visit thenewny.com ♪ [ agent smith ] i've found software that intrigues me. it appears it's an agent of good. ge has wired their medical hardware with innovative software to be in many places at the same time. using data to connect patients to software, to nurses to the right people and machines.

♪ helping hospitals treat people even better, while dramatically reducing waiting time. now a waiting room is just a room. [ telephone ringing ] [ static warbles ] [ beeping ] red or blue? ♪

welcome back to the program. it is not just satellite and wireless industries who are tuned into the love triangle between sprint, dish and soft bank. with fighting talk and bold bidding it seems the race is on. on that note, let's hear from tim. you can give us a little bit of the backdrop here and why you think actually spectrum is so important. >> well, dish has been buying up spectrum over the last few years looking to change from its current satellite tv business into the wider market. satellite tv growth has slowed so dish is looking for other sources of growth. it struggled to find a good partnership. a lot of people thought last

year that at&t would buy dish. dish tried to strike partnerships with clear wire and now it made a bid for sprint. but really the rate of traffic growth is slowing down over the last year or so. we've seen a sharp uptick in smartphones but the actual usage levels have really not grown as fast as many people expected. and so the real question is whether services like video watching netflix on your cell phone will pick up in the future and drive future traffic growth and demand for spectrum. dish's plans are founded on that premise. >> now sprint will be reporting results today so a lot of this will be in focus for investors. you say that dish should be negotiating with clear wire rather than bidding for sprint. explain that. >> well, dish has got two strands. it's looking at moving into

mobile video but it also wants to provide a fixed broadband solution for satellite tv customers. it's losing out to cable and others who can provide broadband and tv services. it's been looking at that as a way to provide fixed broadband to its customers. that is pretty key to its strategy. in terms of mobile video it could go with sprint. it could go with t-mobile. bidding for sprint is one way to potentially strike a deal with soft bank to share some of clear wire spectrum. it's not clear whether dish well needs sprint as much as it needs clear wide spectrum. >> it has to get at that spectrum somehow as you're saying. by the way, it could face increased bid from soft bank which says we're not sure we're going to go that route.

the japanese company clearly wants to be involved in the u.s. market and at this point are they going to back away from trumping the offer to make the deal go through? >> i think that there is a strong possibility that soft bank will up its bid although it has been pretty cautious both about upping its bid for sprint and also over the last six months or so offering increased bid for clear wire. we really don't know whether soft bank is going to try to outbid dish or whether it's going to try to strike a deal which would allow it to get away without increasing what it is paying for sprint. >> if not clear wire, what other good options does dish have here? >> well, in terms of the fixed broadband, he could use his own spectrum for fixed broadband play or go elsewhere. in terms of the mobile video play, certainly if he didn't succeed with his bid for sprint

it would be pretty likely he would go back to t-mobile and strike a deal. >> the chase continues. thank you for your time in the wee hours there in san francisco. straight ahead on the program, gold is down nearly 54% this year. is there anything the company can do to turn that around? we'll discuss when we come back. u.s. futures are pointed higher. 21 points to the dow. can the nasdaq manage a higher open after apple? we'll be right back. ♪ [ male announcer ] help brazil reduce its overall reliance on foreign imports with the launch of the country's largest petrochemical operation. ♪ when emerson takes up the challenge, "it's never been done before" simply becomes consider it solved. emerson. ♪

welcome back to "worldwide exchange." i'll kelly evans. apple is planning to give share ho holders a massive gift in the form of a payout. credit suisse says turnaround is on track after earnings beat. and speculation of an ecb rate cut at the meeting next thursday and game over for nintendo? not yet. a wider operating loss for the year but supermario maker expects a jump in handheld sales as a weaker yen will put it back in the black this year. >> announcer: you're watching "worldwide exchange" bringing you business news from around the globe.

we will keep an eye on apple shares in particular the nasdaq trying to add a point this morning regardless of the sell-off we saw after hours following the results. the dow is still looking higher by 22 points and s&p a couple of points here following a session across europe that's been broadly in the green. here's cnbc ftse global 300 continuing to gain momentum overnight. up about a quarter of 1% and it's followed a trading in the yen. we're not at 100 level but we're higher as well. we'll see if today is the day finally that we take out that triple digit marker. as for european markets, i mentioned despite the fact that we're up in the range of 2% to 3% yesterday for the most part we're seeing the rally continue. the ftse 100 adding a quarter of 1% helped by the likes of barclays this morning. dax is up 0.3. ftse in italy, interesting one. complete reversal for this index.

it was up 0.6 of 1%. we're down by half a percent awaiting on the country to appoint the next prime minister. ibex 35 is up 1%. peripheral sovereign debt performing well for both of the countries. u.s. markets were thrown for a loop on tuesday as a fake twitter message caused brief panic for traders. courtney reagan has more from cnbc hq. >> it was a bit of a startle yesterday afternoon. the fbi and s.e.c. are looking into a fake tweet that briefly hit the markets yesterday. hackers took control of the ap's twitter page and sent out this tweet reporting explosions at the white house that injured president obama. but they actually used the phrase barack obama which threw us off. they confirmed that the message

was fake and jay carney said the president was fine. within three minutes of the tweet, the dow plunged 147 points before recovering. some traders controlled cnbc they canceled orders and waited for more information. while human traders were able to protect their clients, that may not have been the case for many high frequency firms that use computers to scour headlines for good or bad news and trade on that. you'll see the vix here which spiked 10% briefly. reuters says the move wiped out $136 billion from the s&p 500's value. a group called syrian electronic army, which is supportive of president bashar al assad is claiming responsibility and taking credit for hacking the bbc weather service and this past weekend of cbs's "60 minutes." it was quite a startling situation as you can understand to see the dow drop so

precipito precipitously. they do watch everything including twitter. it's a brand new world that we're dealing with here. >> underscores twitter. thank you very much. we've been asking viewers this morning to send in their reaction to what happened yesterday in the market and tell us whether they trust twitter or trust markets depending on who you want to blame. a sweat from toronto. hi to those watching in canada and said the flash crash yesterday left me feeling vulnerable and distrusting. probably not the only one who felt that way. agree, disagree, keep thoughts coming here. e-mail at worldwide@cnbc.com or tweet us the@cnbcwex. recent volatility in gold prices has taken a toll on miners. stocks in barrick gold down 40% in the last 30 days. the company announces first quarter profit before the bell today. michael is precious metals

analyst. will it be a profit? >> i believe so. should be a profit but i think that's the least of the worries of barrick moving into their annual general meeting today and as they enter a period of time of lower than expected gold prices. >> what are you going to be watching closely? >> it's very important time for barrick. they had an unexpected stoppage of one of the construction of their largest newest mine on the border partly causing havoc in the stock over the past 30 days. looking forward to the ceo to address that issue and also other ways barrick can help maintain and keep their cash flow in a period of lower gold prices. >> this cash flow number is going to be important. what's your expectation? >> well, i think you're going to see -- in the first quarter it's going to be fine. right now if you look at 2013 cash flow going forward at current gold prices, barrick will be $2 billion short of what

expectations were just a month ago and we have a major capital spending program ahead of you that will be delicate for barrick to maneuver through that as we move through 2013. >> just curious. there's been so much talk lately about physical gold and the appetite people in india or here or i should say there in the u.s. have for it, what, if anything, do you see? what's the impact for some of the companies or is there whole effect being overblown? >> i think it's not so much an impact to the companies but it certainly is interesting aspect in the marketplace. this $250 correction in the gold price that we witnessed about a week ago has certainly gotten as you mentioned chinese -- investors all over the world are looking for physical access to gold. we've seen liquidations and it's been an intriguing situation as the prices come in and it's brought bargain hunters out to sop up physical demand. for miners themselves, this very to deal with a lower gold price

and how it impacts earnings and cash flow. >> do you have an expectation for where the gold price goes from here for valuation of some of these companies? >> i would anticipate the technical damage was quite severe in the marketplace. i think the market needs to repair a bit. i do anticipate over the next 6 to 12 months we'll get back to levels we were just in march around the $1,600 level. it may take time and investors will be patient. >> they'll punish miners if there's a downside. go ahead. >> i was just saying they've been punished quite dramatically over the past few months. there could be upside on miners if gold price stabilizes. >> all right. thank you, sir. how do you make money in these markets? we've been asking our guests all morning. here are their thoughts. >> i think this process of buying where people want risk but one asset class i would worry about is inflows in the

domestic currency funds and a lot of these as you said many of the countries are slowing down a little bit. those who are even places like turkey and russia are on steroids. >> in the last 12 months is some of the high yield stocks and some of the valuations i reaching quite high level for companies with very low growth and if we can double the growth for a lower price, it's hard to think how we're not going to make money. >> credit suisse delivered 14% today as did some banks yesterday. all three stocks are up 19% to 20% year-to-date. these are strong performers. >> volkswagen earnings are out.

we've been hearing from european automakers this morning and shares rallying after they are saying that 2013 sales revenue will exceed the prior year figure saying the company is seeing earnings before tax of 2.7 billion euros. just going to bring you the full results here as well. it looks as though we see operating profit of 2.3 billion euros. leveled with previous year for revenue figure of 46.6 billion euros. we'll get through the rest of the results and bring them to you after the break. you can see the share reaction. 3.5% for the people's car. as boeing's dreamliner prepares to take flight, the company is teeing up for its own earnings. phil lebeau will join with us a preview and take a look at ford motor company. we'll be right back. e ocean get. the peruvian anchovy harvest suffers.

it raises the price of fishmeal, cattle feed and beef. bny mellon turns insights like these into powerful investment strategies. for a university endowment. it funds a marine biologist... who studies the peruvian anchovy. invested in the world. bny mellon.

welcome back to "worldwide exchange" this morning. these are your headlines. apple profits down for the first time in a decade. will the company's big cash payout win over investors? barclays earnings taking a hit but the bank insists the turnaround is on track. nintendo posted a wider operating annual loss but the gaming giant forecasts a rebound this year thanks to the weaker yen.

u.s. transports will be among the big earnings moves to watch with boeing and ford both set to release first quarter results. we have phil lebeau on the line from chicago with a preview. hey, phil. >> and of these two companies the one that will get more attention today is boeing. primarily because what they say during their conference call and what they show during their report in relationship to the dreamliner and the grounding and how much its cost the company and whether or not we see any special charges with the quarterly earnings, i think that's what wall street is going to be keying in on. remember, we are probably within a day or two of the faa lifting the grounding on the dreamliner. boeing never had to bring down the delivery schedule. further out investors are having more confidence and more comfort with boeing. on the ford story, the issue here is whether or not ford can give investors confidence that things in europe are improving. they're going to report a loss.

they're going to lose $2 billion in europe this year. that's their forecast at this point. north america is really the engine that's powering these guys right now. think about this, kelly. we expect them for the first quarter to report a profit in north america of greater than $2.7 billion. that would easily be the most profitable first quarter ever for the company probably with a profit margin of close to or if not past 12%. that is the area that when he first took over said we need to get profit margins up north of 10%. they're doing that in north america. the issue remains what's going on in europe and how quickly they are coming along and restructuring it. >> the german automaker saying first quarter operating profit dropped 26% year on year. 2.3 billion euros was the figure but it said it will stand by goals announced in march. it will match last year's record operating profit and increase

sales and deliveries and shares are up last check about 3%. >> with vw as it is we heard from daimler today. the issue is europe and specifically what's happened at that german market which seems to be breaking down even further. people thought it would show weakness. sales will dip a little bit. they've accelerated over the last three months and obviously that's the hallmark for volkswagen. with volkswagen, china, south america, the rest of the world is doing very well for them. europe and germany remain a problem. >> okay. phil, we'll leave it there. thank you. we know what to watch for later in the day now. and yesterday we spoke with a truck company and it cut production in europe by 15% just from december to february. so again underscoring the weakness in european region and stocks continue to rally. apple unlocking cash for shareholders in the form of a dividend and buyback program. will it help them connect with

investors again? we'll break it down when we come back. to the new new york state, where cutting taxes for families and businesses is our business. we've reduced taxes and lowered costs to save businesses more than two billion dollars to grow jobs, cut middle class income taxes to the lowest rate in sixty years, and we're creating tax free zones for business startups. the new new york is working creating tens of thousands of new businesses, and we're just getting started. to grow or start your business visit thenewny.com

welcome back. european markets are continuing to rally with the exception of the ftse in italy. there is speculation about who will be the country's next prime minister. markets off the highs of the session but still a strong performance given the 2% to 3% rally we saw across the region yesterday. and here's a look at what's on the agenda in the u.s. today. march durable goods out at 8:30 a.m. eastern. demand for big ticket items expected to drop. boeing reports earnings before the open. you heard from phil lebeau on that and reports from ford, procter & gamble, nextel and sprint. u.s. futures are pointed higher.

nasdaq trying to add a couple points despite being weighed down by apple. at&t reported higher than expected profits. the company added 300,000 mobile subscribers but much of that growth driven by tablet users who pay lower monthly fees. at&t is now keeping full year revenue target of 2% and growth and expects to add more phone customers with launch of new devices like the iphone 5s. shares down in frankfurt trade by 1.5%. and young brands first quarter profits fell less than expected despite a slump in same store sales in china. down 20% in the country. fast food giant warms concern over the bird flu outbreak weighs on sales. they were struggling to recover from last year's food safety scare. yum has 5,300 stores in china. it is maintaining full-year

earnings forecast. shares are up 6% after hours and about that same amount, 5.5%, this morning. apple second quarter profits fell 18%. it was the first yearly decline in a decade although it did beat forecasts and revenues rose better than expected 11%. still gross margins came in at the low end of the company's forecast and apple's third quarter outlook is below estimates. tim cook said they are work on amazing products. analysts expected a new version of the iphone this summer. the bigger news maybe apple's decision to return 100 billion in cash to shareholders boosting dividend 15% and increasing its share buyback program. if that isn't the theme of this entire recovery and what's happening in markets, i don't know what is. it gave apple a pop after hours but stocks gave it back. they closed up about 1.3%. we'll keep an eye this morning to see just how that impacts trade on the nasdaq and across the tech sector for the rest of

the program. news out of italy. we've been waiting to hear from the re-elected president as to choice of prime minister. he's indicated who the next premier will be. italy was down at last check. the former prime minister was seen as a front runner. so letta would be a surprising pick. we'll have more analysis on that today or tomorrow. we want to go back to apple earnings with you, tom. thank you for your time this morning. this share buyback program a sign of desperation? >> i really think that news yesterday is that earnings for march quarter are better than expected. they are significantly

increasing the dividend in buyback. guidance for june quarter is disappointing. two positives and one negative from apple last night. >> it comes down to what next launches will be. tim cook says they'll be amazing. it will be fall, maybe 2014. there's pressure for them to deliver something that could rival the impact that the iphone, ipad had on the industry. >> so when i think about the innovation for apple, i think the increased buyback will put a floor under the stock but innovation will drive it higher and news there is that a lot of product initiatives won't come in fall of this year or into next year. i think for a while here it will be a bit of a wait and see for apple waiting for next generation ipad and cell phone. >> why should that put a floor under shares? >> the buyback should put a floor under shares. the company is committing more of its free cash and cash hoard

to buyback shares and that should support the stock quite nicely. >> when it comes to valuing apple, are you in the camp that looks at them as a hardware play, as a hardware/software hybrid. did you find anything that changes your view on how to value them going forward? >> look at them as hardware/software hybrid. the challenge for valuing apple if you look at it, it's inexpensive but a lot of the upper movement in stocks is driven by better than expected earnings. we're at $540 target but valuation is challenging on apple. >> the point is made here that apple is losing the battle for high end consumer and that a dividend share buyback program may help but it won't fundamentally change the investment thesis if that's the concern weighing on shares. >> at some point it has to be about innovation and again the buyback can help the stock in short-term but they're going to need to continue to innovate new

smartphones, new tablets and devices beyond that and if you look at their history, it suggests that we'll be fine. >> quickly your price target? >> $540. >> all right. we'll watch action today. thank you again, sir. we'll leave it there. earlier we asked you whether you trust twitter to make trading decisions in light of what happened yesterday. yesterday's twitter prompted crash is just another milestone in the maturation of an online social world. tend to agree. there are no tears for traders that may have gotten a call from margin clerk trying to be too clever by exploiting fake bad news. a lot of people may not know the extent for which their funds are affected by what's happening in markets when news like this happens. all right. again, italy president summons let letta. thank you for joining us on the program. we hope to see you back here

tomorrow. time now for "squawk box." have a great day.

good morning. today's top stories bows to investor demands and unlocks more cash but it wasn't enough to make everyone happy. the fbi is investigating a market moving hacking attack of the associate press twitter account. plus, more earnings and economic data before the opening bell rings. it's wednesday, april 24th, 2013. "squawk box" begins right now. good morning, everybody. welcome to "squawk box" here on cnbc.